Practicing is Not Playing, Playing is Not Practicing

Well, okay, I guess you can consider playing your instrument part of practice (most of your practice, in fact). So what do I mean when I say, "Practicing is not playing and playing is not practicing"?

I think the first place I heard this is from Jamie Andreas, a great guitar teacher (perhaps one of the greatest) from the US. I don't actually remember where I saw the idea exactly, but I will give credit where credit is due, and link to Jamie's website (you can learn a lot there, as I have):
http://guitarprinciples.com/ - There is a lot of great material here and I would recommend (and already own) just about any book sold at Guitar Principles.

Anyway, here it is. If we think of "playing" as "doing whatever seems fun on guitar", and "practice" as "doing whatever seems best to improve playing ability", hopefully you'll begin to understand that practicing and playing are not usually the same thing.

What do we need to do to get better at our instrument? Learn scales, learn proper technique, perhaps learn some chords or arpeggios. And what do we do to have fun on our instrument? Play songs, maybe write songs! Sometimes people find scales to be fun, and sometimes learning a new chord can be enjoyable. But often, and for most musicians, I hope you can see that practice and playing are not often the same thing.

There is nothing wrong with playing your instrument, of course. You should have fun playing! Lots of it! Just be sure that you are actually practicing, as well. Practice as often as you reasonably can, play when you need to.